RIM’s Stock Plunges Despite Being Super Bullish On BlackBerry; Analysts Are More Conservative

Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World

Research In Motion’s stock has fallen nearly $14 a share today, or about 17 percent, after the company failed to meet analyst expectations yesterday for the second quarter and provided a weaker than expected outlook for the holiday period.

The concern is that the company won’t be able to keep up with the constant threat from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), as well as increasing competition from Palm (NSDQ: PALM), Windows Mobile and others. However, Jim Balsillie, RIM’s Co-CEO, was as bullish as ever on the company’s conference call yesterday, and hinted at exciting things coming in November during very long drawn out answers to analysts’ pointed questions. “I can’t tip my hat too much on that stuff but at the end of the day, it translates into a customer, a client who is really, really happy and really, really ready to consume heavily and get their peers and friends to consume heavily. And we think we are doing that very, very well.” (via Seeking Alpha transcript.)

The company said it expect to ship between 9.2 million to 9.9 million phone in Q3 and record revenues of up to $3.85 billion. The growth is expected to be fueled by new product launches that are scheduled for the latter part of Q3. Because of the timing late in the quarter, there’s some risk as to whether the devices will hit a snag and be delayed, which could significantly hurt results. Analysts are not totally enthused — despite Balsillie’s excessive use of the adjective “really.” “RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) is unlikely to maintain its over 50 percent share in North America in the face of increasing competition from Apple, Motorola (NYSE: MOT), and Palm, among others,” Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski wrote in a note to clients, reports Reuters. “Even in a still-benign competitive environment and with two newly launched products, RIM lost share for the second consecutive quarter.” Goldman also cut RIM’s stock rating to “neutral” from “buy.”

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